P O R T R A IT S , I S S U E S A N D I N S I GH T S

TRAVELING TOWARD
THE UNKNOWN
LEONORA CARRINGTON STOPPED IN NEW YORK

By Salomon Grimberg
For Joan Geiger

I
n the summer of 1941, the surrealist painter Leonora
Carrington (1917–2011) (Fig. 1) had not been in New York
two weeks when Stella Snead recognized her in the
subway. 1 Carrington and Snead had been classmates and
friends in England, and she would become the subject of one
of Carrington’s first paintings in New York. Snead told
Carrington that Amédée Ozenfant, their teacher, also had
immigrated and brought his Academy of Fine Arts to East 20th
Street. She also told Carrington about other artists who had
fled Europe and were in New York, in particular, the other
surrealist refugees. She took Carrington to see André Breton
and his wife Jacqueline Lamba at their walkup apartment in
Greenwich Village; they were joyful to see her again, after
having no news of her since the War began. Breton, Lamba,
and Aube, their five-year old daughter, had arrived the
previous June, out of Marseille via Martinique to New York,
thanks to the art collector and gallerist Peggy Guggenheim,
who sponsored their trip. Through them, 24-year-old
Carrington soon reconnected with the community of European
refugee artists.
The fateful encounter with Snead had brought Carrington a
long overdue sense of family, of home, and of safety. She and
Renato Leduc, her new husband—it sounded strange to refer
to him as her husband, for she hardly knew him—after
waiting in Portugal for several months for the arrival of her
immigration papers, had sailed out of Lisbon on the SS
Exeter—a ten-ton single-funnel passenger/cargo liner built by
American Export Lines—on July 11, 1941, arriving in New
York ten days later. Leduc recalled, “The trip to New York we
made in a small boat named Exeter, and we had to travel piled
up like sardines.”2 Three Mexican citizens were traveling with
diplomatic passports: Leduc, Carrington, and Loyola, a co-
worker of Leduc’s. Leduc and Loyola’s profession appears on Fig. 1. Renato Leduc, Photograph of Leonora Carrington (c.1942).
the list of passengers as “government.” Oddly, Carrington’s is Private collection.
listed as “none.” It is likely she had had nothing to do with
getting tickets for the trip because 46-year-old Suzanne resumed his old job in the technical department of the tax
Menard, another English woman on-board, apparently had no office (Leonora would never quite understand what he did).
issue listing “artist” as her profession. Upon arrival, Leduc Settled in an apartment at 306 West 73rd Street, her growing
reported to the New York branch of Mexico’s Secretaría de sense of reality—and relief—began to sink in: she had left
Hacienda, the same where he had worked in France, and behind not only the horrors of the War in Europe but the

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 unrelenting clutches of her parents, who had resisted letting place: a necessary stage in her life, vital at one point, it now
her go. But Carrington’s relief was short lived, as five months belonged to the past. Also, unexpectedly, she had found
later, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on herself attracted to 42-year old Leduc. She still liked Ernst, the
December 7, the United States entered the War and a familiar person, and admired the artist, but she was uninterested in the
sense of uneasiness returned. lover. He told her he was marrying Peggy Guggenheim only to
While living in Paris, Carrington had met the Mexican escape Europe, hoping to change her mind, and even believed
Renato Leduc once, without ever considering how significant that when they were both in New York, she would come
that fateful meeting would one day be, radically altering the around. But Carrington held steadfast. No meant no.8
course her life. Leduc was a colorful man, a self-proclaimed Leduc did try—unsuccessfully—to get Carrington a visa to
“prudent anarchist”3 who, in his younger days, had been a enter Mexico. Finally, like his friend Leopoldo Urrea, who had
telegraphist for Pancho Villa and had withdrawn from law married a Spanish Republican to save her from prison, he was
school “because I did not like that besides being boring, it’s convinced to take the same step. “One morning,” he recalled,
bureaucratic and corrupt, since lawyers defend equally good “I went with Leonora to the English consulate where she had a
and bad things.”4 He joined the diplomatic service to be able to friend named Darling, who married us without difficulties.”9
travel, eventually leaving that career behind to become a
journalist and poet. In France, Leduc had befriended some of
the surrealists, including André Breton, Benjamin Perét and his
love interest Remedios Varo, Leonor Fini, and others. One
B orn in England into privilege, Leonora Carrington was
educated in convent schools, from which she was
(proudly) expelled, and later ran away (again, proudly) from
evening, Fini told Leduc, “I’m having dinner at the home of private schools where she had been sent “to be finished.”
Leonora Carrington and Max Ernst; Picasso will be there, Carrington was an exquisite beauty, tall, slender, with perfect
would you like to meet him?”5 When they arrived, Picasso had rose petal skin, raven-black hair and piercing dark eyes. “One
brought a wineskin for the hosts. Leduc and Picasso, who of the most beautiful women I had ever seen,” said Jimmy
shared a common passion for bullfighting and a mutual friend Ernst, who recalled their initial meeting: ”Her name was
in Diego Rivera, got along famously and talked together the Leonora Carrington, and her dark glowing beauty so affected
entire evening.6 Leduc was intelligent, well read, and knew no me that I found it difficult to talk to her coherently.”10
strangers, but when he spoke, his words, peppered with In 1936, Carrington had entered purist Amédée Ozenfant’s
obscenities, belied his fine character and education. Carrington Academy of Fine Arts in London, becoming his first student.
immediately liked Leduc, for whom there were no hidden Among her classmates was Ursula Blackwell. Besides
agendas. What you saw was what you got. enormous wealth, the two had much in common and became
Two years had passed since Leduc’s visit to Carrington and instant friends. By nature, since childhood, both had been
Ernst’s apartment on rue Jacob 12 when they ran into each rebellious, an attitude that included contempt toward British
other at an elegant restaurant in Madrid. He was sitting with a snobbery. Both despised fishing, hunting, and shooting—
friend who first noticed a woman staring at them. Across the killing animals—and loved riding. When Max Ernst—a friend
room sat Carrington accompanied by two men. When Leduc of Blackwell’s husband, Erno Goldfinger, was in town for the
raised his hand to greet her, she approached. They spoke about vernissage of his exhibition at the Mayor Gallery, she invited
her recent stay at a hospital in Santander and about some of Carrington to join them for dinner. The two friends planned to
the surrealists who had escaped to Spain and Andorra. When play a practical joke on Ernst, who had a reputation for
they parted, he assumed he’d never see her again. The next becoming infatuated with women young enough to be his
day, however, Carrington called on him at his hotel. She daughters. “Ernst likes the young girls,” Blackwell told her
wanted to travel to America. Could he help her? Leduc was on with a knowing smile, “we can be silly and flirt with him.”11
his way to Lisbon, where he would be staying several months, But the unexpected happened: Carrington and Ernst both were
and told her to get herself there and to call on him at the smitten. Without a second thought, it seemed natural for her to
Mexican Consulate. When she arrived unannounced at the take Ernst to meet her parents and to inform them she had
Consulate, she promptly asked for Leduc and tried to secure a decided—once again—not to finish school and to leave for
visa for traveling to Mexico. As Lisbon was then a nest of Paris, to live with Ernst. “Yes, without marrying him,” she
Gestapo spies, and no one could vouch for her, her request was replied truthfully.12
denied. Informed that Leduc was not there, she waited.7
When Carrington ran into Ernst unexpectedly at a market Max was at that moment the man that every woman
in Lisbon one day, each was stunned to see the other. It had waits for; there it was, the man that I had always
been more than a year since either had had any information imagined, it was a marvelous union. I was 19 [she had
about the other. Ernst, still absorbed in his longing during their actually turned 20 two months earlier] and he 46. We
forced separation, had neither given up on finding her nor decided to live in Paris. That is how I went to
contemplated how—if he did find her—the dynamics of their communicate it to my parents who, when learning that I
relationship might have changed. He had missed her would not marry, the only answer my father expressed
desperately and tried to reignite their passion and was was: “Never will my door be darkened by your
shocked to discover that Carrington was no longer in love shadow.” In Paris, Max taught me a new way to live, of
with him. For her, the meaning of their affair had fallen into coming into my own; he made my ideas develop, the

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 visions that had lived in me since childhood; he drew me
to him, to Surrealism He gave me all his support, his
love: in our home there were always friends, they
arrived continually, Paul Eluard, André Breton, Louis
Aragon, Marcel Duchamp, and Yves Tanguy who were
from the group. We held formidable reunions, we wrote,
we painted, we created poetry; we communicated ideas,
feelings.…13

Carrington’s avatar was the horse, and she drew them

obsessively; in childhood, she believed she could shape-shift
into one at will. She was also brilliant, and despite her young
age when she arrived in Paris with Ernst—was admired by the
older surrealists for her intuitive intelligence and her ability to
articulate it. Carrington’s appearance in the group was
sudden, and her acceptance immediate. Enthralled by her
wraithlike persona, the surrealists soon came to admire her
kindred spirit as one who lived and created under the belief
that invisible forces influenced the world of appearances.
Breton made Carrington one of his chosen few; only from her
did he accept what he would have interpreted from others as
insubordination. She held the key to the door that opened to
the other side.
By August of 1938 the pair had left Paris, arrived in Saint-
Martin d’Ardèche in southeastern France, and on the 17th of
that month, “Leonora Mary Carrington” signed the title, as
sole owner of their house, a dilapidated seventeenth-century
farmhouse, which they repaired themselves. 14 Life seemed
perfect, but the War brought their peaceful idyll to an end. A
German citizen, Ernst was considered an enemy alien in
France, at the same time Nazi Germany had labeled him a
degenerate artist. Once caught by the Gestapo, his numbered Fig. 2. Leonora Carrington,  Stella Snead and her Cat (1941), oil on
canvas, 24” x 17 7/8”. Private collection.
days would end in a concentration camp. Twice he was
interned in a holding camp, but only the first time was
Carrington able to get him released. Thereafter, alone, Had it not being for the sudden arrival of Max’s friends
hopeless, and with an overwhelming sense of alienation, she Catherine Yarrow and Michel Lukacs, who knows what worse
began to grow paranoid. The progressive distortion of trouble she might have gotten into. Each moment added fuel
Carrington’s internal reality gradually gave way to her to the fire. By the time they had helped her to escape to
misreading external events. The initial (prodromal) period of Madrid, she had developed a full-blown psychotic break and
Carrington’s psychotic decompensation was relatively short— was unable to function. Her parents stepped in and interned
barely a few weeks—a synergism of events accelerated the Leonora against her will in a psychiatric hospital in
experience that unleashed psychotic thinking. Each day, the Santander.15
War brought new and unexpected events confirming that one
was less and less in charge of one’s life. Although with Ernst
she had never questioned her safety, suddenly he was gone
because of an irrational accusation: a deaf mute had turned
W hile they were students in London, Stella Snead’s first
painting had been A Woman with Cats. In New York, the
memory sparked Carrington to paint a strange portrait of
him in for communicating with the enemy by sending light Stella with her cat (1941; Fig. 2), sitting outside a manor, on an
signals. Furthermore, the people in the small town of Saint- invisible chair. Stella’s face is turned to her right and her black
Martin had never been quite trusting of the foreign couple. hair falls in waves touching her shoulders. She has a severe
What were they to make of Ernst’s internment and look, and her puckered lips make her look prune-faced and
Carrington’s despair? They had their own troubles. put out, which is odd, because Stella was beautiful, a charming
Becoming progressively more alienated, overwhelmed by woman, easy to get along with, and quick to smile. Her right
loss of security and the fear of aloneness, Carrington stopped arm reaches out toward the sphere beside her but does not
eating and drank only alcohol so the physical pain would quite touch it. She does, however, with her left hand, touch the
distract her from her helplessness. When soldiers stormed into edge of the opening where lines originate at a point to form a
the house, accusing her of being a spy, what could she say or swirling vertical that spirals to the right, increasing to infinity.
do to convince them otherwise? Nothing. She had given up. Below the sphere is the outline of a cat. Unfinished, it looks

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 meetings, attended shows and parties,
befriending Americans eager to come face to face
with these émigrés who had made a difference
with their daring vision. Surrealism was a
complex art movement, which integrated the
literary, the political, as well as the visual. Art
historian Martica Sawin has recorded that
“[w]hat they learned from the refugees was far
more complex.… One might consider what took
place during those years was a form of
empowerment.” She goes on to quote art
historian Meyer Schapiro: “It wasn’t automatism
that the Americans learned from the surrealists,
but how to be heroic.”16
During her eighteen-month exile in New
York, Carrington’s creativity was imbued with
the force of her previous psychiatric internment,
and her eccentricities were a source of
fascination. Artist Hedda Sterne recalled
Leonora vividly: “She was simply the most
Fig. 3. Leonora Carrington, Garden Bedroom (1941), oil on canvas, 18” x 24”. Where- beautiful creature, she went around in jodhpurs
abouts unknown. and boots—nobody was doing that. I remember
a show, a surrealist show … and at the opening,
transparent. Stella’s blouse and pants fit snuggly against her again Leonora Carrington, when people didn’t do that, came
thin figure, momentarily looking more painted on than made in a dress from a thrift shop, a high necked lace dress. She
of fabric. Her tight koi-red blouse delineates her breasts and looked absolutely beautiful.”17 Others, more observant, could
navel; and her long sleeves reach perhaps two inches from her see the person through the personage and perceived
wrists. Like stockings, her taupe leggings cover her bare feet. something was not quite right. Dealer Julien Levy, who had
Although Carrington left the work unfinished, in some way introduced surrealism into the United States and became a
the image suggests the beneficial effect that meeting Snead had lifelong friend of Leonora’s, recalled her unique sense of
had on her, by helping her shift out the dark state of mind that humor but also her vulnerability: “Carrington was too wacky;
fueled Garden Bedroom (Fig. 3, Pl. 1), the first work she painted she had an impossible temperament, impetuous, tempestuous,
in New York, dated October 1941. you never knew when you were going to hurt her feelings. She
One month later, by November 25, with the same quiet was oversensitive.” 18 But most did not consider that her
mood evident in Stella Snead’s portrait, Carrington finished unusual demeanor, rather than evidencing personal freedom,
Theater People (Pl. 2), a poetic representation of two or even “surrealist” demeanor, carried residual symptoms
otherworldly personages in costume standing in an empty from the psychological injuries she had recently experienced,
landscape. The man wears a striped navy and black hunting and a lingering evidence of her recent incursion into psychosis,
hat and a dark green frock coat that spreads at the waist and from which one does not emerge overnight. In his memoirs,
opens in the front. His dark brown pants fit snuggly inside Luis Buñuel recalled a disturbing memory of Leonora at a
shiny black high-heeled boots. His head turns to the left, party; but before mentioning the anecdote, he prefaced it by
focusing on the beyond. The woman is wrapped in a gray- saying that she had recently left a sanitarium in Santander.
fringed, koi-red shawl, which she holds protectively against “One day, arriving at the home of a so called Mr. [Bernard]
her body with her left arm; she wears white stockings but Reiss, she entered the bathroom and showered completely
walks shoeless. Suspended over her head and shoulders— dressed. Afterward dripping, she took a seat in the salon and
although never touching her—is a helmet shaped as the upper stared at me fixedly. Moments later, she took me by the arm
part of a white-spotted, gray horse, that, through an opening and told me in Spanish: ‘You are handsome, you remind me of
in front, exposes her pale face. Floating behind them, the my caretaker.’”19
irregular shaped skin of a body-less horned bull forms a By day the surrealists worked hard and at night they
backdrop that frames the couple. Both Stella Snead and Her Cat attended reunions or parties, often at Peggy Guggenheim’s,
and Theater People were painted on the same size canvases and where it was certain one always found interesting people. On
with the same soft color palette. In fact, had Snead’s portrait occasion, these were masquerade parties where Lamba and
not been identified as such, placed side by side with Theater Carrington stood out. Ethel Baziotes recalled how Lamba had
People, the two might have passed as companions. discovered that, for a pittance, she could rent eye-catching
Carrington blended immediately into the surrealist costumes from theatrical establishments and dress up as
community in New York, as she had in Paris. She moved freely historical personages, a favored one being Marie de Fontanges,
among old friends—and made new ones—participated in the young mistress of Louis XIV, with her hair carefully coiffed

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Fig. 4. Leonora Carrington, in collaboration with Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, and Roberto Matta, Summer (1941), oil on cotton bedsheet, 7’ x 12’.
Signed and dated Leonora Carrington 6 Nov. 1941 (lower right). Collection Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Gift of Marya Rubinstein Bernard-Adir, through
the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, New York, 1968.

to look disarranged as she had made it fashionable in court.20 Levy recalled Carrington undermining Breton’s infantile
But Carrington’s inventiveness went beyond what anyone tyranny and self-importance among a group of artists chatting
might imagine: One evening she walked into a party wearing a at a café. “Breton raised his fist and pounded the table. ‘This
dress she had made out of old velvet curtains acquired in a junk will be a serious meeting,’ he said, ‘we will conduct it in
shop and sewn throughout with small bells. As she entered the perfect parliamentary fashion. When you wish to speak, you
room, the sound of the bells drew the silent attention of those will raise your hand, and I will acknowledge your signal with
present to her stunning looks. Standing motionless for a the words La parole est à tel-et-tel, la parole est à vous, (So and so
moment, with a single movement of her hand, she let the dress has the word, the word is yours).’ Leonora burst into laughter,
slide off her shoulders to expose her naked body.21 which she had tried in vain to smother. Breton rapped sternly
Carrington and Lamba continued as best friends and co- again for order.”24 But Leonora’s mocking intervention had
conspirators. Lamba and Breton had been having problems for turned the meeting into a joke.
some time. She had had enough of his authoritarian ways, but As soon as she settled in New York, Carrington began
with a daughter between them, she felt trapped in the painting; she had done little during her travails in Santander
marriage; also, she was living in a foreign country thanks to and none in Portugal. Painting was how she paid closest
the protective umbrella of Breton’s reputation.22 When VVV, attention to herself. In Santander, she had lacked basic
the surrealist publication edited by David Hare, with editorial materials, other than pencil and notebook paper the hospital
advice from Breton, Ernst, and Marcel Duchamp, was in its provided her for the drawings she made each day, encouraged
beginnings, and Hare, who only spoke English, and Breton, by Dr. Luis Morales, to help organize her thinking and explain
who only spoke French, were unable to communicate with herself to him.25 Finally, while at the sanatorium, overcoming
each other, it was Lamba who translated for both. She and her fear one day she wrote a letter to her father—it was the
Hare fell in love, and before their affair was exposed, first time she communicated with her family since they had
Carrington covered for her friend so she could meet her lover. forcibly hospitalized her—asking him to authorize the hospital
She also babysat Aube, who, Carrington recalled, threw awful to provide her with artist’s supplies.26 Although she received
tantrums like her father, and also like him was an admixture of no direct acknowledgment of her letter, she knew he had
endearing and tyrannical traits. Yet, Carrington and Aube had received it when painting materials arrived. Despite their
fun together, playing the candle game and hide-and-seek, and being of lesser quality than she would have preferred, she was
inventing and playing out stories with character dolls grateful and began painting. In the hospital, she produced
Carrington made out of sanitary napkins.23 Villa Pilar, of three mythical beasts—one a horned horse—
Despite the genuine affection Carrington felt toward which she dedicated “A Dr. Luis Morales, Janvier 1, 1941,” and
Breton, she empathized with Lamba’s predicament and sided gifted it to him as she was leaving.27 A second, En Bas (Down
with her: reflecting back, she referred to him as a “machista,” Below), where a number of inmates in fancy dress—she and her
for seeing men as superior and women as subservient. Julien avatar white horse among them—pose for a group portrait,

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 I returned to Amacho in a state of
great sexual excitement. It seemed
natural to me to find don Luis in my
room, busy examining Elizabeth’s
dummy. I sat down next to him, he
caressed my face and introduced
his fingers in my mouth. This
actually induced an orgasm. Then
he took my notebook and wrote
down on one page, “O Corte o
Cortijo” (“Palace or Cottage”)
whereupon I took to wanting him
terribly and to writing him every
day.30

In Garden Bedroom (Fig. 3 and Pl. 1), a

ghoulish Leonora rocks madly on a
spotted rocking horse resembling the one
Ernst had bought for her in 1938. The once
beautiful Carrington is unrecognizable:
she looks disheveled, wearing an old red
shirt torn at the cuffs, tight black pants
Fig. 5. Leonora Carrington, Green Tea (1942), oil on canvas, 24” x 30”. Private collection. open at the waist, and yellow striped
socks, like the ones she has Ernst wear in
the portrait she made of him walking
she gifted to Leduc in New York. On the verso, she signed, shoeless on the icy landscape. Behind her, a nude woman-tree
dated, and inscribed: “Santander, Pour toi Renato, au nom du observes the scene, as stunned and startled as the black-
magie, le vert qui est mon couleur (Santander, For you Renato, in beaked red parrot that pulls upward in mid-flight to face her.
the name of magic, green, which is my color) 28 Jan. 1942.” Oblivious to the horrible event is a doll-like personage
As events of the War turned more chaotic, Carrington (Elizabeth’s dummy?) sitting on the ground, face concealed
became acutely aware how, at every moment, indefinable behind a white mask wearing a fixed smile and an inward
forces have an effect on a person’s life, and how totally alone look, and two rabbits in front. On the far back right corner,
she was and always had been. That she had not been in charge nude caryatids hold up the canopy of an undisturbed bed.
of her life became all too clear by the time she was discharged Working at the Secretaría de Hacienda, Leduc had a good
from the hospital. In retrospect, her hospitalization confirmed salary, and Carrington lacked for nothing, yet, selling Garden
that, depending completely, as she had done, on her parents Bedroom was important to her for it satiated momentarily her
and then Ernst, was akin to being captive. Freedom would not hunger for autonomy. Garden Bedroom, the first painting she
be hers unless she seized it; and self-reliance was the only way. sold in New York, went to Rudi Blesh, a friend of Jimmy
Yet, she remained fearful.28 Ernst’s. Blesh, a prolific art and respected music critic,
authored groundbreaking books on jazz, Ragtime, De

C arrington worked steadily in New York, and a significant

part of the writing and painting she produced during this
eighteen-month period reflects the disquiet she lived with
Kooning, Stuart Davis, Buster Keaton, and more. He also
acquired two works by Lamba.
There was never any question about Carrington and
from the War. Noteworthy are the autobiographical text Leduc’s marriage as one of convenience, so attitudes and
“Down Below,” and the self-portrait Garden Bedroom, both behaviors of a traditional marriage were not expected to
about her hospitalization in Santander. These painful interfere with the arrangement. Even so, Carrington’s
recollections, crystallized here as art, had remained very much infatuation with Leduc, in whom she discovered “a good
alive in a dark recess of her mind. “Down Below,” written with person,” grew.31 He was generous, non-judgmental, respected
razor-blade precision, recalled her recent incursion into her space, and made no demands. Upon learning that she had
madness, dictated during a three-day period, August 23–26, run away to Lisbon without luggage, he took the initiative and
1943, three years to the day after her involuntary commitment. took her to buy a dress. Even Peggy Guggenheim took notice
“I was interned in Dr Morales’ sanatorium in Santander that he was protective of Carrington in a paternal way. 32
Spain,” she recalls, and pronounced “incurably insane.”29 In Although their worlds were diametrically apart, and each led a
the text, she describes the unspeakable treatment she received separate life, they shared compatibility. However, over time, it
in hospital, and other events and interactions with fellow became clear that he preferred spending time with friends to
inmates and caretakers: having a serious romantic relationship. When he finally settled

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down, he admitted never having married for love,
that his current wife was a good friend who kept
their home admirably.33 Not what Carrington would
have liked, but the relationship would take its
course—and by then, they were living in Mexico.
By the Fall of 1941, Carrington‘s precarious state
of mind had mostly dissipated. So when the famous
Rubinstein sisters, Helena and the younger Manka,
visited her studio, she was painting at her best.
Before leaving, Helena acquired a painting of five
black dogs beneath a tree on which a white animal is
perched,34 and Manka commissioned a work. When
Helena learned that Carrington might be traveling to
Mexico, she had many stories to tell about the
artistic community she would be encountering
there—Helena had been there the previous summer
and had visited several artists’ studios and acquired
their work. Unable to decide which watercolors by
Diego Rivera’s to buy, in the end, she did not buy
any, but she did acquire a still life by Frida Kahlo. Fig. 6. Leonora Carrington, Dogs of the Sleeper (1942), etching on paper, 12 1/2 “ x 13”.
She bought many naïve nineteenth-century portraits Private collection.
of children, but also was interested in Mexico’s post-
revolutionary work and brought back paintings by Olga Costa Guimmon Guimm
and Miguel Covarrubias, and had her portrait painted by The Yaks of With
Roberto Montenegro. The narrative of Mexico and its artists Mandragon
still meant nothing to Carrington, for she had no points of Guimmon Guimmon Let me Sleep
reference, but the sisters’ warmth toward her left an indelible And when we are The Secrets
imprint on her and a lifelong “absolute devotion” toward of
them.35 Manka had remained silent while her sister spoke but You are [she draws a circle with wings] + I am [she draws a
then commissioned Carrington to paint a mural; she could circle with arms, a neck, and a sun for a head].
pick the subject herself. 36 They agreed on a price of $200.
There she signed the painting on the lower left, also in
Carrington’s problem would be how to pay for a mural-size
mirror writing, “Leonora Carrington 6 Nov 1941.” On the left,
canvas; she could barely afford small canvases, and none of
under a balance, stand two bulls, a black male Maremanna
her friends had money to lend her. She approached Chagall, as
with half moon shaped horns, and a red long-horned female
it was common knowledge that he was the only one of the
Afrikaner. Under the black bull, in mirror writing, she wrote in
exiled artists selling his work. After looking at her paintings,
black letters:
he shook his head, deciding against the loan, and
patronizingly said, “Keep painting my little one, keep And Skinless Little Horse Don your
painting.”37 At the eleventh hour, Breton rescued the day by Yak skin. Guimmon’s cloak
giving her one of his bed sheets, and she was able to paint the The Bird of Belief is Cracking the
mural, with Ernst, Duchamp, and Roberto Matta as assistants. Cold of the Night in his beak
Ernst momentarily shifted out of the assistant mode and
painted his signature bird in the upper left corner to Behind them, on the dark green mountainous middle ground,
complement the work. Carrington titled it Summer (Fig. 4). four brown bulls with large spreading horns walk in line
Manka loved it.38 toward the right. Farther behind, on the left, a man hangs from
The scene in the horizontal landscape, takes place in an a gallows. On the right middle ground, swaddled in yellow,
open field, at high noon, under a bright yellow sky. The eye is red, and black, respectively, three half-deer half-humans hang
drawn toward the middle right foreground and rests on a aligned on a perch, pierced through the heart. In the
haloed red compass suspended in midair. Leopard heads at background center floats a circular garden with a single pine
the end of each cardinal point stare out at the viewer, and on growing in the middle. Aligned in the faraway is an endless
each side, a long-haired amphibian mermaid stands on blood- view of white medieval tents flooded by sunlight. Max Ernst’s
red ground. Their thick bodies turn away from each other, larger-than-life bird stands on its two legs, wings spread,
although the one on the right with white hair turns her head witness to the event unfolding before him.
toward her companion. Near her, a circular shape rests on a Carrington produced two paintings during December 1941,
triangle balanced on the ground; white spots sprout out of its one referring to the world she left behind and the other to the
center, and on the area bathed by the spots Carrington writes, one where she had arrived. La Joie de patinage (The Joy of
again in mirror writing: Skating) (front cover), finished on December 11, harkens back

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 emotionally to a time when the peaceful life in Europe was conundrum for which she never ever found an answer,
suddenly shattered. In a winter landscape, the mountains and looking human but not fitting among humans with whom she
ground are covered in snow, and the water on which two had to live; not being an animal but feeling at home with them,
personages are skating is iced over. The first skater, a specifically identifying with horses, believing in childhood she
satyress—female head, bare breasted torso loosely covered could transform into one.39
with a green fabric, and the dark furred hind legs of a goat—is The following year, 1942, she completed La Chasse and
skating on her left hoof and lifting her right to keep her Green Tea, plus Dogs of the Sleeper (an etching) and several
balance. The second skater, a bald, three-headed female, wears drawings. Her earlier, undated self-portrait, A l’Auberge du
a long and ample red and blue striped dress to keep herself Cheval d’Aube (At The Inn of the Dawn Horse, 1940), was used to
protected from the cold along with the warmth of animal illustrate André Breton’s interview in View magazine.40 Also, in
skins. The fur of a lynx covers her left shoulder; and two live View, during 1941–42, she published two stories, “The Sisters”
foxes circle around her neck: one is biting the tail of another and “White Rabbits,” and her Portrait of Max Ernst (1940)
that has turned around to look at it. Snuggled up, a black soay illustrated her text titled “Max Ernst The Bird Superior.” In
ram rides on her back as she slides with her right bare foot on VVV, the surrealist magazine, she collaborated in every issue
the ice, balancing herself with her left leg upraised. Oblivious between 1942 and 1944, contributing her three narratives—
to their surroundings, both are skating peacefully, when an “Waiting,” “The Seventh Horse,” and “Down Below”—and
iridescent blue sphere comes crashing down into the ice, four illustrations—Green Tea (the painting that Breton titled
barely missing them. On the other side of the river is the place after Carrington’s story by the same name, La Dame Ovale) and
where horses live. One stands below the arched entry of the three drawings. 41 Also in 1942, following Carrington’s
building that houses them, where, on its highest point, a horse departure to Mexico, Peggy Guggenheim published a book,
weather vane points toward the wind direction. Outside the Art of This Century Collection, illustrating Leonora’s second
building an Icelandic horse is covered with a blanket, a brown version of The Horses of Lord Candlestick (1938), introduced by a
stallion is mounting a grey mare, and a fourth horse is brief biography and reproducing four lines from Carrington’s
galloping toward the entrance. In the distance, another short story “La Debutante.”42
iridescent sphere in the sky forewarns of what is to come. Green Tea (Fig. 5 and Pl. 5), signed and dated July 1942, is
As the year was coming to an end, on December 27, Leonora’s visual recollection of her stay in Santander.
Carrington finished Caballos (Pl. 3). The scene is a desert Although Carrington spoke little about the work, she said
landscape split by a body of water. On the far side is the enough for it to be understood what she endured. In the
landscape representing Europe, which rages, and where forefront of the painting, a larger than life Carrington towers
volcanoes belching smoke darken the sky. On the near side, over the grounds of the hospital. She is ghostly pale, semi-
where harmony reigns, is America, solely inhabited by horses unconscious, swaddled, still sleeping off the effects of the
that roam freely at their leisure. To the left, two rest in a private anesthesia given to her prior to receiving shock therapy. A
enclosure. In the distance, a ruinous structure once inhabited white circle around her is a boundary to enclose and protect
by humans, now shelters horses of various breeds. A young her. She stands on the left of the landscape, away from the
black stallion stares aroused at an American Paint mare carefully manicured garden to the right. Separated by lined
playing opposite, on the rooftop. And below the archway a trees, four wedges of green land grow out and expand out of a
black Andalusian horse observes a stallion covering a mare. central, circular fountain where two swaddled bodies stand by
By the time Leonora Carrington’s interlude in New York another that sits on the edge of the fountain, and a road
came to an end, she had produced during 1941 eight branches away from the property. In the foreground,
documented canvases—Garden Bedroom, Stella Snead and Her underground, Carrington painted chthonic life, inhabitants of
Cat, Theater People, Untitled (a painting of five dogs beneath a the underworld: bats, swaddled human corpses, and a mother
tree on which an animal is perched), Summer (a mural); La Joie bird approaching her nestlings. The garden itself is enclosed
de patinage, and Caballos. She also completed a ninth canvas, within a circular fence of thick shrubbery, whose sides come to
begun in 1937, an untitled work later given the title Fear (Pl. 4). a stop as they meet the sides of the road, where a horse and a
It is a painting she began when she first arrived in Paris at the dog grow trees—one full of figs ready to be plucked—instead
end of 1937, one that Ernst took with him, among other works of tails, and each one’s collar is tethered to the other’s tail.
by her that he rescued, when he escaped from Saint-Martin They also represent hospital inmates.
d’Ardeche to Lisbon (where they ran into each other). The Carrington’s first surrealist print, Dogs of The Sleeper (1946;
painting has elements from other works from 1937, including Fig. 6), complementary to Green Tea, is a most brutal depiction
the girl-horse and the feminine boudoir chair (included in the of her experience in hospital; it is painful to look at. Perhaps
self-portrait). The emotional content is very revealing. A young what makes the image so disturbing is how the event, drawn
girl-horse, fear in her eyes and gestures, is out of place, onto the plate with such absolute certainty, is hard lined in
trapped in an empty human context. Outside the window is black and white. Aligned on the left edge stand a group of
emptiness. She is torn between two choices: to stay trapped in chained dogs, and toward the center each dog of a second
an enclosure where she does not fit in or to take a chance group of seven is collared and chained within a circular disc.
outside, at the unknown. It is a telling image of how As in Green Tea, one dog chained to a tree is pulling at the
Carrington grew up (and lived her whole life) living a chain, desperate to escape. The etching was part of a portfolio

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Fig. 7. Leonora Carrington, Dr. Morales
(1940), pencil on paper, measurements
unknown. Whereabouts unknown.

Fig. 8. Leonora Carrington, Vers l’inconnu (Toward the unknown) (1940), pencil on paper,
measurements unknown. Whereabouts unknown.

of original works published by VVV, created in the studio of Santander experience out of her system by writing about it. It
engraver Stanley William Hayter. An edition of fifty was would help her, he said, attain freedom from the angst caused
planned, to raise funds to continue the magazine, but they did by the memory—and peace of mind—as she gained
not sell well and just twenty were printed. Other artists understanding of the experience. When Carrington attempted
planned to be included were Breton, Chagall, Hare, Matta, to put it down on paper, she stumbled. It was too raw, too
Alexander Calder, Andre Masson, Robert Motherwell, Kurt fresh in her mind; she needed some distance from it. Mabille
Seligmann, and Yves Tanguy.43 persisted: if she could not write it, perhaps she would dictate
By February 1944, when the fourth and final issue of VVV it, as if speaking to him, which she did—to Jeanne Mégnen,
appeared, Carrington was no longer in New York. The Mabille’s wife. The text was translated from French to English
publication would make history, as it brought together the by Victor Llona Gastañeta for publication in VVV.45 Carrington
creative efforts from many of the surrealists who had come to illustrated it with three complementary drawings. One is a
New York, exiled from the War in Europe, and others who had portrait of Dr. Luis Morales (1940; Fig. 7), her psychiatrist, and
influenced them or shared the group’s mindset. Their effect on the second a detailed map of the Sanatorio para enfermos del
American artists struggling to establish a personal iconography aparato digestivo, nutrición y nerviosos, on which she carefully
would be pivotal. Abstract expressionism could not have labeled and numbered each landmark to match the outlined
developed as it did without the arrival of surrealism. But also, list (except for the injured horse lying on its side, near the
as the surrealists settled into their new home—despite their apple tree, which is neither named, nor numbered, nor
desire to avoid assimilation—they began to integrate into the included on the list). In the third drawing (1940; Fig. 8),
fabric of their surroundings, as many ties that bound them Carrington places a unicorn at the wheel of a partially
together loosened, and following their instinctual nature they submerged amphibian vehicle. In front, a floating mermaid
sought to explore the world around them. carries on her back a mandala, in whose center is a sphere that
Among the texts published in the last issue of VVV was spirals to the right (as does the one at Stella Snead’s feet). In
Carrington’s “Down Below,” the scorching effect of every back of the vehicle, to stabilize it, is a spiked wheel. Various
word making the text nearly an unbearable read. Patrick personages stand or sit on the car; a bird flies above, and
Waldberg, chronicler of surrealism, then living in New York, in behind, a woman holds an infant to her chest with her left arm,
awe, summed up the reaction of many: “The ripping tale by while her right hand holds the leash of a female dog that has
Leonora is one of the most moving documents I have read in a recently given birth. Behind the woman and child, Carrington
long time. I read it in one breath, as if fascinated. It’s true, recreates a sphere that spirals to the right. Written sideways in
Leonora, the person, inspires in me extremely troubling French, on the left edge of the drawing:
feelings, and it is difficult for me to be objective about them.”44 Reply, my very dear friend in a known language– I implore you, I
Dr. Pierre Mabille, another escapee from war-torn France to myself – fear of being interned again as mad. And remember that
New York, had suggested to Carrington that she get the complete understanding is the most precious of all rights. One risks

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 Fig. 10. Leonora Carrington, Brothers and sisters have I
none (1942), ink on paper, 14” x 18”. Mary-Anne Martin |
Fig. 9. Leonora Carrington, La Chasse (The hunt) (1942), oil on canvas, 19 1/8” x 37”. Fine Art, New York. “First Papers of Surrealism” exhibition
Whereabouts unknown. “First Papers of Surrealism” exhibition catalogue (1942), p. 35. catalogue (1942), p. 26.

knowing nothing if one walks with a clumsy step among beings who Mexico.47 Newsweek advertised the show as the “biggest all-
still live near the unknown. On the lower right corner she adds: surrealist show ever in the United States,” 48 which was an
Love conscious in homes of infant genies, homes of sublime mad exaggeration, but it made for good press. Regardless, the fact
women. Awareness of the universe, [of] the atom, and [of] the was that the show really was a serious affair deriving its title
unknown: dynamics in the body of the atom – the cerebral power of from the struggles the refugees had gone through to escape
water, and the psychology of animal masks.46 Europe by the skin of their teeth—including obtaining exit
She titled the drawing Vers l’inconnu (Toward the unknown), visas from their countries and immigration papers from the
and signed and dated it “October, 1940.” She had made the United States. To bring immediate attention to the seriousness
drawing while interned in the madhouse at Santander. of their predicament, the cover of the catalogue reproduced a
As he expected, and as she hoped, following Mabille’s photo of a wall pockmarked with bullet holes actually poked
suggestion was a freeing choice. By thoughtfully organizing in the paper. But what drew the public to the exhibition, and
and articulating the experience, dictating “Down Below” turned it into an unforgettable affair, was less the art than its
helped Carrington observe how her instinctual choices and presentation. Breton hung the exhibition of works by some
their external expression had shaped her life during her thirty artists,49 and Duchamp took hundreds of feet of twine
breakdown. Mabille was greatly respected, not only as a and, with the assistance of Carrington, Lamba, and Susi Hare
physician (he had delivered Aube Breton), but also as an wove a criss-cross web throughout the exhibition space.50 This
anthropologist. His advice was sought after by the surrealists, installation had a double intent: to interfere with easy access to
for his knowledge of psychoanalytic theory, Kabbalah, the works by visitors as well having them go to extra lengths
Voodoo, religious ecstasy (he authored a study of Saint to reach them. Critics, journalists, and visitors offered endless
Thérèse de Lisieux), and other esoteric subjects. It was Mabille interpretations of the symbolism of the twine web. But
who introduced her to psychoanalytic thought, to Kabbalah, Duchamp, the only one who knew its meaning—if there was
and to his 1940 book, Le Miroir du merveilleux (Mirror of the one—didn’t care, or bother to tell. Duchamp also had the
Marvelous: The Classic Surrealist Work on Myth), which became a ingenious idea to replace photographs in the catalogue of
surrealist classic. This last work provided for Carrington the several of the artists represented with “compensatory
only understanding she accepted as explanation of her recent portraits” of other personages. For example, Matta’s portrait
incursion into madness—and of her life: a journey of would be a child in a sailor suit; Duchamp’s a distressed
marvelous interactions between dream and wakefulness, the woman; Breton’s a film noir character, etc. For Leonora’s
interconnectedness between internal and external reality, of image, he used the well-known portrait of Allie Mae
nature and the constant unfolding of oneself, internally and Burroughs by Walker Evans, considered a symbol of the Great
socially. By understanding this process, one’s history would no Depression. As if all this was not enough, Duchamp still came
longer come across like a series of random events but as a up with another idea to befuddle visitors on opening night: to
struggle to conquer sequential experiences in order to reach a have a group of boys and girls play ball and hopscotch,
spiritual promised land. respectively, as visitors attempted to study the works
exhibited. If these “added attractions” were meant to cause a

T he “First Papers of Surrealism” exhibition, held October 14

to November 7, 1942, at the Whitelaw Reid Mansion in
midtown Manhattan, was the last surrealist event Carrington
succès de scandale, the goal was accomplished. As if it was not
enough, a photograph of the “webbed” show, as it looked
upon entering, was intentionally reproduced upside down in
attended and participated in installing before leaving for VVV! Thus spoke surrealism. The two works exhibited by

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 Fig. 12. Leonora Carrington, The Horses of Lord Candlestick (1938), oil
on canvas, 23 1/2” x 35”. Private Collection, New York.

Answer: He is looking at himself. In the drawing, Carrington

is foretelling her forthcoming aloneness, the effect of her
impending separation from her surrealist family. On the coat
worn by the androgyn, Carrington partly inscribed in mirror
writing, “TIME WAS TIME IS TIME IS PAST.”52 Carrington
gifted the drawing to André Breton before leaving for Mexico.
In Peggy Guggenheim’s museum-gallery, Art of This
Century, architect Friederick J. Kiesler had mounted
Carrington’s The Horses of Lord Candlestick on an adjustable
projecting arm, opposite a sitting area where it could be easily
Fig. 11. Photograph of Peggy Guggenheim sitting by Leonora The
studied at eye level (Figs. 11 and 12). The painting had entered
Carrington’s The Horses of Lord Candlestick in her Art Of This Century
gallery, c. 1942. Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice.
an excellent home, where it hung in good company among
twentieth-century masters like Brancusi, Braque, Brauner,
Chagall, De Chirico, Delvaux, Ernst, Kandinsky, Matta, Miro,
Carrington in the show were reproduced in the catalogue. Picasso, and Tanguy. The Horses of Lord Candlestick was the first
Matta lent La Chasse (The hunt) (Fig. 9), which he had acquired canvas Carrington sold; Guggenheim had acquired it directly
fresh off the easel. Its quiet silence speaks of the aftermath of from her in France, for eighty dollars, in 1938, before
the hunt. Snow covers the mountainous landscape, including Carrington and Ernst moved to Saint-Martin d’Ardèche. This
the abodes and birds sitting atop the mountains. Two flying was before Guggenheim began her wild shopping spree to
structures are invisibly hung from the subtle green sky. In the artists’ studios, when she was determined to buy one painting
upper left, five personages stand together and one female a day from uneasy artists eager to sell for dollars as the threat
lounges on her side. Hanging from the structure are swaddled of war loomed on the horizon. A comparison of this painting
catch. On the upper right, three determined horses travel in a with the first version of the subject Carrington had produced
straight line, pulling forward a floating island. On the lower earlier that same year reveals how her masterful self-assured
right corner is the trapped animal, the hunted and caught dark craft developed by leaps and bounds in a brief period of a few
brown horse lying flat on its side atop a circular net, similar months. The former appears as the work of a talented but
horse to the one Carrington drew in the map for “Down struggling Leonora. The latter is the work of a mature
Below.” Her drawing Brothers and sisters have I none (Fig. 10) Carrington, one that brings together the characteristic magic of
was reproduced below a drawing by “O.W.,” L’ame soeur her spontaneous freedom and the fine artistry of her mature
(L’Androgyne), below a quote from Balzac’s La Comedie work. It was also the first work by a woman that entered
Humaine, “Séraphita-Séraphitus,” the perfect androgyn having Peggy Guggenheim’s collection.
transcended their humanity.51 The intention was to establish a Leonora Carrington was in Mexico when, between
parallel between both drawings of the alchemical androgyn, December 9, 1942 and January 24, 1943, her self-portrait A
the twin male and female souls that parted and reunited as one l’Auberge du Cheval d’Aube, and the portrait she painted of Max
being. In Carrington’s drawing, open scissors, held by an Ernst were prominently included in the New York Museum of
invisible hand, threaten to cut the protective circle around it. Modern Art exhibition, “20th Century Portraits.”53 Her two
The title is the first line of a riddle: Brothers and sisters have I works were still being exhibited there when, during January
none, but this man’s father is my father’s son. Who am I looking at? 5–31, 1943 (extended to February 6), Peggy Guggenheim

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13
 presented the historic “Exhibition by 31 Women,” in which Veronese, Librarian and Archivist at The Peggy Guggenheim
only four of the thirty-one artists were represented with two Collection. Lastly, my greatest debt goes to Leonora Carrington, who
walks with me every step of the way.
paintings; Leonora was among them. Guggenheim lent The
Several segments in this essay appeared in my 2008 essay, Leonora
Horses of Lord Candlestick, and Pierre Matisse La Joie de Patinage Carrington, What She Might Be, published by the Dallas Museum of
(erroneously dated 1942 in the brochure). Marcel Duchamp Art. Since then, other authors have published the information without
had proposed the show, and he and Guggenheim selected providing proper credit. Mexico celebrates the centennial of Leonora
works with advice from Jimmy Ernst, Max Ernst, Howard Carrington’s birth next year with an exhibition at Mexico City’s Museo
de Arte Moderno.
Putzel, James Thrall Soby, and James Johnson Sweeney. Two
years later, Carrington was included in “The Women,” 1. Stella Snead, interview with the author, 1999.
Guggenheim’s second exhibition of art by women. 2. José Ramón Garambella, Renato Por Leduc Apuntes de Una Vida
Singular 3rd ed. (México, D.F.: Ediciones Océ a no, 1983),143.
Author’s translation. Henceforth, Leduc.

W hen Leonora Carrington arrived in New York in July of

1941, she was unknown; by the time she left, eighteen
months later, she was unforgettable.
3. Ibid., 108.
4. Ibid.,114.
Leaving came suddenly and was not planned. Leduc wanted 5. Ibid., 124.
to stay in New York. He had gotten used to living well in France 6. Ibid.,124–26.
and returning to Mexico’s low salaries was not a welcome 7. Ibid., 138–42.
thought. In New York, he and Leonora lived frugally but well,
8. While in Portugal and the United States, Ernst, relentless about
and he was able to put aside a reserve. One day, he received a reestablishing the relationship with Carrington, spoke nonstop to
visitor, Eduardo Villaseñor, then General Director of the Banco Peggy Guggenheim about it. Meanwhile, Peggy was in love with him,
de México. They discussed Leduc’s hesitancy about returning to and despite feeling torn about his cruel indifference toward her
Mexico, where he feared not being able to make a living for two. feelings, she remained determined to rescue him from Europe. Not
once did Ernst express gratitude or consideration—not then, not
At Villaseñor ’s urging, he went to Mexico to explore work
afterward—an issue that did not go unnoticed by Leonora, which only
opportunities, but came back disappointed, without prospects. added further distance between them. In the fall of 1942, after Ernst
However, Villaseñor persisted, wiring him $800 dollars, a met Dorothea Tanning, and Carrington and Leduc left for Mexico,
significant sum in those days, to encourage and plan his return.54 Ernst’s obsessiveness finally abated. Ernst never spoke publicly about
Feeling closer to her husband than to anyone else in New Carrington. Carrington was also discreet; but her admiration for the
artist Ernst remained steadfast, as well as her gratitude for the person
York, Carrington chose to leave with Leduc. For little money,
he had been with her; she had no regrets. They never communicated
he bought an old banger and off they went. On the road, again. Leonora Carrington, personal communication. I had a long
Leonora discovered a country that had nothing to do with friendship with the artist, beginning in 1966, until weeks before her
New York, which explained Leduc’s insatiable resentment of death, with many opportunities for personal communications.
the United States. She saw rampant racism that she could not 9. Garambella, Leduc, 142.
have imagined in offensive signs outside restaurants that read 10. Jimmy Ernst, A Not So Still Life (New York: St. Martin’s/Marek,
“No Colored Allowed,” and further south, “No Mexicans or 1984), 87.
Dogs Allowed.” Once, she had to go into a restaurant to buy 11. For the description of how Carrington and Ernst met, see my essay
food and bring it back to the automobile, for Renato was not in Leonora Carrington, What She Might Be, (Dallas: Dallas Museum
allowed entrance. It was a good idea to leave the United States, of Art, 2008), 51.
she thought. Crossing into Mexico, she saw people riding 12. When Leonora took Ernst to meet her parents, she was genuinely
horses on unpaved streets, and she felt a comfortable surprised when her father told her that if she planned to live with a
married man, he never wanted to see her again. Ernst returned to
familiarity. But when they drove into Mexico City, and she
London to wait for Carrington, who had stayed to speak further with
noticed a trolley with a sign that read “Misterios,” she knew her horrified parents, and when nothing was accomplished to pack,
she had arrived at the right place.55 • telling them she was going to Paris to attend a party at Christian
Bérard’s, although they knew better. Before leaving, in anger, she
Salomon Grimberg, M.D. has a private practice in child picked up a decorative object, a metal animal, and threw it across
the room. Leonora Carrington, personal communication.
psychiatry in Dallas, Texas. He is a regular contributor to the
Woman’s Art Journal, writes on various aspects of the creative 13. Manuel Avila Camacho, interview with Leonora Carrington Part I,
“Max Ernst me Enseño Nueva Forma de Vivir,” Excelsior, Feb. 10,
process, and is writing an authorized catalogue raisonne of
1974, B-2. Author’s translation.
Leonora Carrington’s paintings.
14. For a comprehensive narrative of the events leading to Carrington
and Ernst’s move from Paris, their stay in Saint-Martin, and what
Notes transpired following their separation and with the house since their
I am indebted to several persons for countless generosities. In Mexico, departure, see Silvana Schmidt, Loplops Geheimnis Max Ernst und
at the Galería de Arte Mexicano, Directors Mariana Pérez Amor and Leonora Carrington in Südfrankreich (Köln: Verlag Kiepenheurer &
Alejandra Reygadas Yturbe; Patricia Torres and Rafael Yturbe; and Witsch, 1996), 59. Author’s translation.
Enrique Guerrero, Director of the Galería Enrique Guerrero. In New 15. As she was leaving France to cross into Spain, Carrington was simul-
York: Mary-Anne Martin, Director of Mary-Anne Martin/Fine Art; Stella taneously crossing to the other side of sanity, and whatever infor-
Snead; Manka Rubinstein and Ephraim Adir. In Paris, at the Galerie mation presented itself to her thereafter, she could only misread.
1900-2000, Directors Marcel Fleiss and David Fleiss. In Madrid, I thank Only hospitalization in a place where her life could be organized and
Josefina Alix, and Dr. Luis Morales in Santander; and in Venice, Silvio simplified would help.

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16. Martica Sawin, Surrealism in Exile and the Beginning of the New York, and showed it to an uninterested Janet Flanner. That text was
York School (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995), ix. lost. When Carrington explained to Mabille that she was having
17. Hedda Sterne quoted in Jacqueline Bograd Weld, Peggy, The trouble writing it, he suggested she dictate it to his wife, which
Wayward Guggenheim (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1986), 227. Carrington did, in French, while, Warner tells us, “Mabille and other
refugees were camping in the abandoned Russian Embassy in
18. Julien Levy quoted in ibid., 227. Mexico City.” At the time, Carrington and Leduc were living on
19. Luis Buñuel, Mi ultimo suspiro (memorias) (Barcelona: Plaza & Janes, Artes 110, before divorcing. The text first appears in print,
S. A., 1982), 177. Author’s translation. translated into English, in 1944, after Carrington had been living in
Mexico over a year. One needs also to consider that after she
20. Ethel Baziotes, communication with the author, Oct. 4, 2000.
dictated it in French, it was sent to Victor Llona, the translator who,
21. Hedia Xavier, communication with the author, 1966. in the early 1940s was living in Lima. We do not know whether the
22. Jacqueline Lamba, personal communication with the author, August English translation was passed by Carrington to confirm it was in her
1987. voice before it was printed in VVV; but it’s unlikely. Its first French
publication by FONTAINE, as “EN BAS,” was in 1945, as she
23. Leonora Carrington, communication with the author.
dictated it to Jeanne Mégnen. The text had been reprinted again
24. Julien Levy, Memoir of an Art Gallery (New York: Putnam, 1977), and again in Llona’s translation until Paul De Angelis and Marina
279. Warner brought it to Carrington for her reading and commentaries
25. Dr. Luis Morales, interview with the author, August 10, 1995. before re-publishing it. See Marina Warner’s Introduction in
Leonora Carrington, The House of Fear: Notes From Down Below
26. Leonora Carrington, communication with the author.
(New York: Dutton, 1988), 1.
27. I thank Dr. Luis Morales for providing me a photo of Carrington’s
46. Author’s translation.
painting Villa Pilar and many other generosities.
47. A comprehensive study of First Papers of Surrealism is Lewis
28. Leonora Carrington, communication with the author.
Kachur’s, Displaying the Marvelous (Cambridge: The MIT Press,
29. Leonora Carrington, “Down Below,” VVV, David Hare, ed., no. 4, 2001), 164 –214. The exhibition was sponsored by the Coordinating
(Feb. 1944), 70. Council of French Relief Societies, Inc., which published the
30. Ibid., 84. Elizabeth’s dummy is a life-size doll made available in catalogue, which may be seen at https://archive.org/details/
psychiatric units for patients’ use as a form of psychodrama, to hit firstpaperssur00bret (accessed Aug. 2, 2017).
violently whenever they feel angry, or hug when feeling needy. 48. “Agonized Humor,” Newsweek, (Oct. 26, 1942), 76.
31. Susana Corcuera, communication with the author, 1989. 49. There was no checklist in the catalogue or one printed separately.
32. Reflecting on Leduc’s attitude toward Carrington when she first escaped Facing the foreword by Sidney Janis, within the drawing of a
to Lisbon, “Peggy observed with some satisfaction, ‘He [Renato] was like keyhole, is a haphazard list that includes fragmented names of
a father to her.’” Quoted in Anton Gill, Art Lover, A Biography of Peggy foreign artists, Frida Kahlo, Meret Oppenheim, Hedda Sterne, and
Guggenheim (New York: Harper Collins, 2002), 256. Remedios Varo. But from other sources, one learns that work by
these artists, except for some collages by Hedda Sterne, were not
33. Garambella, Leduc, 275–76.
exhibited. Breton wrote to Péret, who was living in Mexico, asking
34. This painting is lost. The only documentation of its existence to borrow two paintings by Varo and one she owned by Brauner;
appears in Helena Rubinstein’s estate sale: Parke Bernet Galleries but these were never lent. Only works by two women appear
Inc, N.Y., The Collection of Helena Rubinstein [Princess Gourielli], illustrated in the catalogue, a painting and a drawing by Leonora
Modern Paintings and Sculpture, part two, April 27, 1966, lot 654 Carrington and a painting by Kay Sage.
(not illustrated).
50. Interview with Susanna Perkins Coggeshall (formerly Susi Hare), in
35. Leonora Carrington, communication with the author. 2002. Carrington, Duchamp, Lamba, André Breton, and Susi Hare
36. Personal communication with the author, 1987. I thank Manka “strung” the show. Susi recalled for me how the exhibition was
Rubinstein for sharing her memories of Leonora Carrington and for mounted and how, later that night, David told her he was leaving
her generous hospitality. her for Lamba, with whom he’d been having an affair. 

37. Leonora Carrington, communication with the author. 51. Séraphîta refers to Honoré de Balzac’s novel about an androgyn
who, by being both male and female, embodies the perfect human.
38. Ibid.
52. The line Time was—Time is—Time is past, is from a comedy by
39. The work is among those discovered by Teresa Feibelman, Robert Greene, a playwright from the Elizabethan era. Friar Bacon
including Theater People and Bedroom Garden. Although the and Friar Bungay, both of whom are magicians, work together to
painting has been known as Untitled, I titled it Fear, with create a brass head, animated under the devil’s influence. The head
Carrington’s blessing, because of its emotional content.  speaks three times, saying Time was—Time is—Time is past, and
40. View, Nicolas Callas, ed., vol. I, nos. 7–8 (Oct.–Nov., 1941). then falls to the floor and shatters. Afterwards, Friar Bacon’s
41. The second issue of VVV was double, including issues 2 and 3. careless use of magic causes two innocent young men to kill each
other. Contrite, he gives up magic and devotes himself to a life of
42. Peggy Guggenheim, ed. Art of This Century (New York: Art Aid repentance. Carrington repeats the quote two lines from the
Corporation, 1942), 132. bottom in the text, she wrote in 1945 to accompany the portrait of
43. Personal communication with the author, 1987. I thank Ephraim Saint Anthony she submitted to a contest in search of the saint’s
Adir for showing me the complete album, his hospitality, and other portrait to appear in the film Bel Ami.
generosities. 53. During 1943, the exhibition travelled to the Baltimore Museum of Art,
44. Michel Waldberg, ed., Patrick Waldberg and Isabelle Waldberg, Un Feb. 12 – March 7; Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Mass., March
Amour Acéphale, Correspondance 1940–1949 (Paris: ELA La 21 – April 18; Arts Club of Chicago, May 1 –31; and California Palace
Differénce, 1992), 215. Author’s translation. of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco: June 14 –July 12.
45. Dating “Down Below” is somewhat of a conundrum. Marina Warner 54. Garambella, Leduc, 306.
follows its trajectory from the beginning. Carrington wrote an early 55. Leonora Carrington, communication with the author.
version of the original text in English, in 1942, while living in New

FALL / WINTER 2017

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